John recorded these words of Jesus, "If they persecuted me, they will persecute you, too!" Matthew explained, "How blessed are those who are persecuted because they pursue righteousness! for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs. How blessed you are when people insult you and persecute you and tell all kinds of vicious lies about you because you follow me! Rejoice, be glad, because your reward in heaven is great — they persecuted the prophets before you in the same way."
And now we have news like this: "Church pastor killed during service."
All the details are not available; there is news of a mental disorder due to Lyme Disease. Even if that is the case, which identifies even the victimizer as a victim, I have to ask if this still isn't a kind of persecution?
What do I mean? Well, even if some mental or medical deficiency is a contributing factor, why was a pastor of a church targeted? The deficiency may have removed filters, inhibitions and the "DON'T" button, but the target was the church for some reason. I have strong doubt that the target was random - though I could be wrong. How much planning went into this act and what underlying motives are there for targeting a [this?] church or its [this?] pastor.
It seems to me that this was an act of persecution because its target was a church and pastor and the attack was carried out during an assembly of the congregation in order to have maximum effect.
As more information becomes available, I will add comments here.
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